Kraków’s town hall stood on the west side of the Rynek from around 1300 and grew for five centuries until it reached almost to Szewska Street. Under Austrian rule it was condemned as ruinous and pulled down in 1820. The tower was spared, and it is now the only piece of the building that ran this market for half a millennium.
It is a square Gothic tower of dressed limestone and brick, about 70 metres tall, and it visibly leans — roughly 55 centimetres off vertical, the result of a storm rather than bad foundations. Two stone lions crouch at the foot of the steps; they are 19th-century additions from a Silesian palace, not medieval.
Inside, a narrow stair of 110 stone steps climbs past a small Museum of Kraków display on the town hall, the city council and the tower’s own workings, to a gallery with a view straight down onto the Cloth Hall roof and across to St Mary’s unequal towers. It is the only place in Kraków where you can see the shape of the 1257 survey from above.
The cellars are the part people miss. They held the town prison and its torture chamber, and next to it the Piwnica Świdnicka, the municipal beer and wine cellar named for the strong beer imported from Świdnica in Silesia. They are now used as a café and a small theatre stage rather than shown as a museum, so what you can see depends on what is on.
Two practical warnings. First, the operator’s price and the tourism board’s price disagree: the Museum of Kraków’s own page lists 22 zł normal / 16 zł reduced / 44 zł family as of August 2026, while krakow.travel still quotes 18/14/36 zł. We publish the operator’s figure. Second, the museum’s page lists year-round hours, but krakow.travel says the tower closes for the winter months — historically January to early March and late November into December. If you are coming in the off season, check before you cross the square.
